Woman Hit By City of Chicago Truck May 21 Recalls Accident

A victim from the accident, Jennifer Anton, 25, spoke yesterday of the accident. She says that seconds before the pickup truck ran over a curb and slammed into her, she noticed shocked looks on the faces of nearby pedestrians. She was able to push the stroller she was pushing out of the way before she was hit by the truck, and the toddler’s father later hailed her as a hero.

Next thing she knew she was face down on the sidewalk.

“I just remember screaming in pain,” Anton said Tuesday while at a news conference in her lawyer’s office to call attention to a lawsuit against the truck driver and the city of Chicago. “I could just feel that I was broken.”

The truck driver, Dwight Washington, a city employee, was found to have a blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.183 percent, according to police. This level is more than twice the legal limit to drive. The crash at Cedar and Rush streets in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood left six other pedestrians injured.

Anton and the child she was caring for are both plaintiffs in separate civil lawsuits against both the city and Washington. The suits claim that Washington’s city supervisors “knew or should have known” he was driving drunk.

Anton, who has braces on both her legs, said she has undergone 11 surgeries. She said that she still has no feeling in her right foot and is not expected to walk again until sometime next year.